WARNING: This story contains suicidal ideation
For months now, eight-year-old Sama Tabeel has woken up every morning in a tent in the southern Gaza Strip, picked up a broken mirror, looked at herself, and prayed that her hair would miraculously grow back.
Sama, who lives in a tent for displaced Palestinians west of Khan Younis, wears a pink bandana that covers her bald head, after she suddenly lost most of her hair, back in June.
“I wish I could put a hair-tie on my hair again and I wish I could go back to holding a brush and brushing my hair again,” she said.
“I really miss brushing my hair.”
His family – his brother, sister and parents – are among tens of thousands of homeless people in the area. On May 6, they were in southern Gaza in the town of Rafah when Israeli forces entered, to take control of going over to Egypt.
The children were sleeping when Israeli soldiers entered the house, the Samas said.
His mother, Fattah Tabeel, says the family fled to a nearby hospital, but 30 minutes after arriving, the top floor was hit by Israeli jets.
“My daughter was very scared, she was panicking. The explosions and strikes were intense,” said Fattah.
Doctors said that Sama’s hair loss may have been due to fear, which made her go into shock, according to Fattah. She says her daughter is still scared, especially because of the instability and lack of safety in being in a war zone and hearing ambulances and bombs nearby.
“How can his hair grow under these conditions?”
Experts say it is just one of the many symptoms of psychological distress and trauma suffered by hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza as a result of Israel’s bombardment of the besieged area.
Sama Tabeel, an eight-year-old girl, sits in a tent west of Khan Younis in Gaza, braiding hair from her toy – something she can no longer do after losing most of her hair. Tabeel was told by doctors that his hair fell out because he was constantly afraid as Israeli planes continued to fly towards Gaza. He says he prays that his hair will grow back one day so he can brush it again.
Dr. Abdul Basith, an emergency physician in the Toronto area, says hair loss is one of the many ways the stress and trauma of war can manifest physically.
“The children of Gaza have experienced an unprecedented level of trauma,” said Basith.
Basith, who was in Gaza for two weeks in March as a member of an emergency medical team with the World Health Organization (WHO), said that the conditions there have a great impact on the mental health of children.
The Sama family waited until morning and left the hospital and fled to Khan Younis. Two days later, when Sama was brushing her hair, pieces of it fell out all at once.
“Almost all of his hair fell out,” Fattah said.
He says that the loss of hair has left Sama unable to play with his friends who used to make fun of him.
“There was one incident when he came to me while shouting. The kids took off the bandage and called him ‘bald,'” said Fattah. He says that Sama is playing with his toys or his colors on paper.
She says she and her husband did everything they could. They took the Samas to many doctors to no avail. The treatment she needs to grow her hair is not available, and the other treatments they have tried have had no effect.
“Yesterday, around 10 pm, he was screaming. I asked him what happened and he said ‘I want to die,'” said Fattah.
“I asked him ‘Why?’ She said ‘My birthday is coming up and I won’t have any hair.’
‘I was robbed of my friendship’
Sama turned nine on October 5, almost a year into the Israel-Hamas war. She says she just wants her hair to grow, so she can comb and braid it like before.
Despite living his entire life in the besieged Gaza and living in a war zone for almost a year, the hair loss highlighted the grief and hardship the Sama have endured at such a young age.
“I was robbed of my childhood,” he said in Arabic. “I lost a lot of hair, I just want it to grow back.”
According to a Save The Children report in March, “months of violence, displacement, hunger and disease over nearly 17 years of blockade have caused permanent brain damage to children in Gaza.”
The non-profit group said at the time that “the support, services and tools they need to care for their children are far away and out of reach.”
The report said that everyone interviewed said they had seen a “significant deterioration” in children’s mental health, adding that current conditions in Gaza represent “literary risk factors” for permanent brain damage.
Symptoms included “fear, anxiety, junk food, bedwetting” and sleep problems.
Israeli attacks have killed more than 41,467 Palestinians, wounded about 95,921 and displaced nearly 2.3 million people since the war began last fall, according to the latest figures provided by the Gaza Health Ministry. The riots followed Hamas violence on October 7, 2023, in Israel, in which its forces killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
Stress and fear
Dr. Fozia Alvi, a family doctor in Calgary, is also the president of Humanity Auxilium, a Canadian-based network of volunteer doctors.
Since February, he says the nonprofit has sent 36 doctors to provide aid in Gaza, and “almost every doctor told me more or less.” [the] the same issues of stress for children and the horrors they face.”
Alvi says that children who undergo surgery often do it without adequate anesthesia “all the while dealing with the psychological distress of war.”
That trauma can have far-reaching consequences.
“Not knowing whether you will live or die will definitely make these children prone to illness in the short term but also get chronic diseases in the long run,” said Basith, an emergency physician.
“If you step back, what is really scary is that if they survive this massacre, if they grow up to be adults, they will end up facing the demons of suffering for the rest of their lives.
Regarding Sama, he says he hopes that one day he will be able to part with his pink belt.
“God willing, if my hair comes back, I will burn this bandage,” she said.
“I’m going to burn it. I hate it. I wish my hair would grow back and I could braid it.”
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